SOBRIETY IN PREACHERS by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 17, 1861

SOBRIETY IN PREACHERS.

By Editor

THE article from Bro. Cornell in last week's Review, entitled, Preachers Should be Sober, is excellent. The texts quoted, the extracts, and the facts stated, are all to the point. Such articles should have a strong influence upon our preachers. We design to profit by it. May God help.

There is a strong temptation before the mirthful preacher to indulge in that clownish style of preaching which will produce a smile in his audience. The taste of the more vain and chaffy portion of the present generation calls for such preaching. And this taste is created by the popular style of the public speaking of the day. Political orators love to be cheered, therefore aim at fun. At Rochester, N. Y., flaming handbills were out, stating that the "Rev. Henry Ward Beecher would speak at Corinthian Hall," on some moral subject, on a certain evening. We attended with the expectation of hearing a rich, dignified lecture, delivered with that gravity becoming a minister of Jesus. The speaker eloquently said many good things; but the principal labor of his giant mind seemed to be to produce laughter by his clownish wit, by which he kept three thousand people cheering, stamping, and laughing, much of the time for more than an hour. Such men form the relish for clownish speaking, and the majority are not pleased with a grave, common sense style. Smaller men seek to please the people, and are sometimes strongly tempted to be smart also, and make themselves appear superlatively silly in trying to ape their superiors in point of fun.

There is such a thing as a fitness in things. On a funeral occasion we expect to hear a funeral hymn, and not a thanksgiving anthem. We expect the political speaker will indulge in wit, and call out laughter and cheering. But such things can not be fitting to the solemn position and duties of the minister of Jesus. Take the prophets for an example. Where is the record that they indulged in clownish wit? When did Christ and his first ministers excite laughter in their audiences? Never, never. The gospel, in point of dignity and purity of sound words, is as much above the reckless waggerty of those ministers who would extort a silly grin from those whose heads are softer than their hearts, as the heavens are above the earth.

But teachers of the third message above all should be solemn, and sound in speech. Read their message in Rev. xiv, 9-12, the most dreadful and awfully solemn that can be found in the book of God. It is the closing message, and brings us to the day of wrath and the revelation of Christ from heaven. This message is to ripen the harvest of the earth. The destinies of men hang upon the decisions they make in regard to it, and the decision of many depends upon the manner in which the message is presented. The messenger stands between the living and the dead. He is mouth for God, the ambassador for Christ. He beseeches the people in Christ's stead. O, his awfully solemn and responsible position! He is to watch for souls as one that must give account. What an account the jesting, trifling minister will have to give. Wherein he fails to have his words and deportment in harmony with his solemn message, and his responsible position and work, so far he mars the holy work of God. Does the messenger indulge in odd and jesting expressions in the sacred desk, or in the social circle? his followers will catch such a spirit sooner than any other. And those who have not so much self-command as their leader, will excel him in mixing foolish waggerty with their religion. You may see such persons greet each other as fellow-travelers to the kingdom; but their coarse, rough manners, and their odd, clownish language, more resemble the greetings of horse-jockeys or hardy sailors, than the greetings of the meek followers of the Man of sorrows. Such men, including their minister, who tolerate such a spirit, need first to be civilized, then christianized, before they can understand the spirit and the duties of the present time. Such persons, and such ministers, are a living curse to the cause of God. They are Satan's choicest agents to disgust the unbelieving, and wound and discourage true believers. God's people should not give the least countenance to men who have so little of Jesus and the spirit of the truth in them as to indulge in trifling and jesting while preaching; no, not so much as to remain in the congregation.

We admit that in debates and reviews a successful contrast of truth and error will sometimes produce a smile. All good men will, however, be guarded here. But it is this reaching out, and going out of the way to say something witty, or falling into a waggish style of cheap, flat drollery, which is a high crime in the sight of heaven, and a disgust to all good and sensible men. A witty clown will be respected as such by those who like that kind of men; but let him keep out of the pulpit till he is converted, and God answers somebody's prayers in giving him a sound mind.